


The Senses of Freedom

by Softlight



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: I Promise it Ends Happy, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Slavery, alluded to violence and later death, sad but bittersweet and then happy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 15:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11671995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Softlight/pseuds/Softlight
Summary: Freedom tastes like oranges.Freedom looks crimson.Freedom feels like loss.Freedom sounds like breathing.Four definitions of freedom through four senses and four people.





	The Senses of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if this is good, but I fell in love with this concept and need to catch up with CaPri week, so have this! Please enjoy, and try not to judge my mistakes too harshly. <3

Freedom tastes like oranges.  Sweet and sticky, and the juice runs down his hands.  He cannot get enough of it, gulping it down like a starving man.  He cannot remember an ecstasy like this, a joy so powerful, he could cry.

And cry he does.  When he is told, he weeps freely, the tears that stain his face and the sobs that wrack his chest feel like the most beautiful feelings in the world.  He cannot breathe, but he cannot care, because it is so sweet to feel the shock travel up his spine and leave his brain more alive than its ever felt.

Freedom tastes like oranges, and he could die happy with the taste on his tongue.

Between the words hitting his ears and processing them in his head, he falls to his knees and clutches at the ground.  There is fear, yes, fear of it being a lie, fear of the joy, of the  _ hope _ , racing through him like a jackrabbit marking him as insubordinate.  But there is nothing to fear, for he is free beneath the blue sky, and no one can hurt him.

Not anymore.

The grass smells sweet and feels soft beneath him, and he basks in it as he lets the message race through his body.

_ He is free _ .

It does not feel real, but his bones know it cannot be false.  They would shatter if it was a lie, for he could not take the hope that keeps his heart beating and crush it after this.  He is free, in spirit mind body  _ free _ , and nothing can cage him now.

No one can cage him.  Not now, not ever again.

He is free, free to taste the sweet flesh of freedom and let it dribble down his chin in messy rivers.  He wants that, wants that more than anything else, and suddenly he has it.  He can let the citrus dance upon his tongue without remorse or fear of retribution.  His freedom is his; his to possess, his to command,  _ his _ .

To Erasmus, freedom tastes like oranges.

* * *

Freedom looks crimson.  It covers the halls, from the corridors to the windows, and the flags all hang stoically.  It drenches his surroundings like blood in battle, and the color leaves him woozy.  

There is no trace of the blue, only recently put up to be ripped down by his soldiers, of the starbursts and sapphires that flooded the halls.  There is no more blue uniforms roaming the halls, no more blue to wear, no more blue eyes to stare into.  There is no more blue to hate; there is no more blue to love.  There is no more.

There is only crimson.  Crimson like home, crimson like family, crimson like blood.  

He had spilled blood to get this freedom.  This freedom was not without cost.  There was no receiving freedom like a gift; no, freedom was  _ taken _ , brutally and with finality.  There is no negotiating with the man who owns your body, your heart.  There is only a fight, and there can be no more.  

There can be no more.

Even if his freedom was given, this freedom, these red halls and these red flags and these red reminders, was taken.  This freedom was a battle, a victory over the unwitting.  

But this victory was no battle, no glorious fight to win for a higher purpose; it was a slaughter, an easy sacrifice to take.  Or so it feels.

Freedom looks like crimson, and it makes him want to retch.  This cannot be freedom, this cannot be the one thing he had fought for, it cannot be so unfulfilling.  It feels like he’s lost something, lost and not gained.  He gained a fort, he gained his freedom, he gained an army and his name.

He lost nothing more than a wistful possibility.

The red reminds him of just how unlikely that possibility was, of how they would never work and would never love again.  The red reminds him that the blood shed was too great to overcome, that there was no forgiveness to be found on either side of this battle.  The red reminds him.

But he would approach as an ally, and he would approach as a free man.

To Damianos, freedom looks crimson.

* * *

Freedom feels like loss.  The emptiness overwhelms, and he cannot revel in his lack of chains because it presses so.  He may be free, but there is nothing to be gained here.  He has lost far more than he attained, a bargain in his opponent’s favor.  For himself, this will be no victory.  It will be a welcome slaughter.

The cost of his freedom, a mere night in a cold cell with a scrap of blanket and a whisper of wind, was worth it, he knows.  He overplayed his hand and will not observe the fruits of his loss, but he prays that his king will.  Not the king he served, the mere monster who stole the role and more, but his iron king, the man galloping across the country and away.

Away from him.

He knows that his king will not come, and whatever logic the cold has not eaten at tells him it is for the best, that his sacrifice be for naught if his king risked and lost it all for him.  It is unlikely his king even knows what has happened, what he has done.  His king won’t know until it is far too late for his own life to be saved, but he is alright with that.  So he tells himself.

So he tells himself.

Despite himself, he revels in the small freedoms he is allotted in a cell.  There is no false king to serve, no lies to wear or spin, no large bed to warm.  He is nothing to the man who will kill him, and nothing has never felt like such a relief.

Despite it all.  Despite his unavoidable death, his pain, his fear of this day coming so soon, despite it all.  It is a relief, and he can go to the grave free.

He is possessed no more.

To Nicaise, freedom feels like loss.

* * *

Freedom sounds like breathing.  Breathing, thick and steady and robust.  It fills his whole being, the constant drum of the man next to him, the constant reassurance that his lover is alive, that he is alive, that they are alive.

Together.

He cannot help but be enchanted, for sun is streaming through the windows and the waves are crashing against the cliffs below and  _ he is breathing _ .  Every inhale leaves him inebriated, every exhale catches him ectatic.  He is allowed to enjoy this unremarkable event, allowed to lazy about in bed and  _ listen _ .  He is allowed so much more than he can ever truly appreciate, but he will try.

His love’s thick barrel of a chest rises and falls in time with his thunderous air, and he cannot help but marvel at his husband’s storm.  His husband is the storm, large and powerful and giant swells of water that crash into the earth and leave it changed.  He thunders, he storms, and he leaves him breathless.

So he listens, and he prays for a thousand more years of this, of these mornings and his husband’s breath.  He will not let it be taken easily, and he will fight to keep air in those lungs.

But it is not the time for fighting, so he lets his body go soft against the bed and listens to his husband breathe as the dawn enters their room.  He is gold, golden lightning and a sleeping storm, and he wants to be transfixed for the rest of his life by the man beside him.  That would be a perfect way to spend an eternity.

They are together, and they are safe.  He cannot ask for more, so he quietly thanks whoever is responsible for such a perfect moment and a perfect man and let himself be drawn into the storm beside him.  

He is so grateful, and so, so happy.

To Laurent, freedom sounds like breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline Notes:  
> \- Erasmus's definition is when slavery is outlawed  
> \- Damen's definition is when he has taken Ravenal in King's Rising and before he goes to Laurent  
> \- Nicaise's definition is the night before his execution (I will write something happy for him, I promise!)  
> \- Laurent's definition is when he and Damen are at the summer palace and are just happy
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
